Ivana Bacik (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Lynch, to the House. I welcome this Bill and believe it is welcomed generally across the House and by NGOs. Everyone with an involvement in penal reform or prison work will be aware of the unfit, inhumane and sub-standard conditions currently pertaining in Cork prison and the urgent need to ensure those conditions are improved and the prison is rebuilt. There is general welcome for the Bill from all, including the Penal Reform Trust and the Jesuit Centre of Faith and Justice.

The current conditions at Cork prison have been widely condemned, both internationally by the European committee for the prevention of torture and by our inspector of prisons. Therefore, this is a long overdue piece of legislation to enable the rebuilding of the prison. I listened to Senator O'Donovan and sympathise with the idea that we should not rush the Bill. In that regard, I spoke with our Leader, Senator Cummins, about changing the Order of Business, but he reminded me we passed the Order of Business this morning. Also, there was a full debate on this motion some weeks ago at the Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality. We are having a good debate on the Bill and its content, there are no amendments put forward on it and it is a matter of urgency.

This Bill is part of ongoing penal reform and we have seen a number of welcome and important initiatives taken in this regard by the Government. There is more of an emphasis on penal reform under the current Government than previously. The rebuilding programme is in progress in Mountjoy and we have seen a commitment to ending slopping-out there. Like myself, members of the Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality will have seen at first hand the great and welcome physical improvement taking place in Mountjoy. We have seen initiatives like community return and the unlocking community alternatives scheme, UCAS, and have seen important decisions being taken, for example, the closure, at last, of St. Patrick's Institution and an end to the appalling practice of keeping minors detained there. We have also seen initiatives such as the introduction of integrated sentence management, better planning for end of sentence release and an end to slopping-out nationally. These are all welcome.

Two issues raised by colleagues do not actually relate to the Bill, which simply facilitates the rebuilding of the prison, but to the detail of the plan for rebuilding. The first concerns single cell occupancy and this was addressed in the Minister's speech. It is regrettable that in the plan for the new Cork prison, only 30 cells will be for single occupancy and that we see an increased use of double occupancy cells. We need to ensure, as mentioned by the Jesuit Centre of Faith and Justice, that as a minimum we conform to the standard set by the inspector of prisons. I am sure many colleagues are aware of the work of Dr. Kevin Warner in this area, who has stated that the inspector's standards fall below those of the European prison rules, rule No. 18.5 of which requires single cell occupancy. The European rule states that prisons should normally be accommodated during the night in individual cells, except where it is preferable for them to share sleeping accommodation. The Minister said there are situations where prisoners may want to share, for example family members and friends, and this might be beneficial. This should be possible, but single cell occupancy is the norm and it is regrettable we do not seem to be aiming for that.

The second concern was raised by both the Jesuit Centre of Faith and Justice and the Irish Penal Reform Trust. It relates to a bigger issue, one we addressed recently in the report on penal reform I authored for the Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality and which was adopted unanimously by the committee. In that report we called for a decarceration strategy to be adopted by the Minister.

This would result in a reduction in the use of imprisonment be seeking, in particular, to commute sentences of imprisonment for non-violent offenders where they receive very short sentences of less than six months. As the Minister of State, Deputy Lynch, and the Minister, Deputy Shatter, are aware, a huge number of prisoners are being processed through the system and being given very short periods in prison without being able to avail of any serious rehabilitation, integration or sentence management, and are simply shuffled out again at the other end. This is not conducive to a good rehabilitative penal system.

I am glad our report was adopted and I am seeking to further it with the Minister and his advisers at present. I know it will feed into the strategic review of penal reform that the Minister has embarked upon, which is very welcome. It is the first time since the Whitaker committee reported in the mid-1980s that we are going to see this sort of strategic review of the penal system. I hope this Bill does not herald the sort of penal expansionism we have seen in the past under previous Ministers, where new prisons were simply built without any real regard to whether they were needed. I am glad that under this Government we have abandoned the Thornton Hall scheme, which was a particularly extreme example of penal expansionism. It is entirely appropriate that we are seeking to rebuild Cork Prison; there is no doubt about that. I know we will see greatly improved conditions within the prison, including in-cell sanitation as a given, and we will see at least some cells designated as single-cell occupancy. I believe all of us would like to see more cells in the prison designated as single-cell occupancy, at least enough to enable long-term prisoners to be housed in those spaces, as required by the Inspector of Prisons. Even if we cannot attain the proper standards as set out under the European prison rules, I believe we could do somewhat better.

Having said all that, like others, I very much welcome the Bill. I greatly appreciate the urgent need to ensure better conditions for those who are currently incarcerated in Cork Prison.